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Saturday, June 25, 2011

Piecemeal June

When Kevin's cat starts bringing parts of a sex doll into his apartment above the porno store, things start getting strange. Kevin assembled the parts and the doll comes to life. But who did the doll belong to before she came into Kevin's possession?

After reading and enjoying Jordan Krall's Squid Pulp Blues and Fistful of Feet, I decided to give his debut novel a try. Piecemeal June is an odd little book that's chock full of fetishes, bizarre sex acts, and lots of fecal matter. It wasn't quite what I expected after reading two other Jordan Krall books but it was still enjoyable.

The characters were pretty memorable. Kevin and his foot fetish, Mushy and his concussion-induced delirium, the crab men assassins, Max the porn shop owner. I don't think I'll forget Latrina the oracle for a very long time. I thought the connection between Piecemeal June and June St. Eclair could have been explored a little more but Krall had already crammed so much into 72 pages it's understandable that it wasn't.

For a book about a sex doll that has suddenly come to life, Piecemeal June is surprisingly deep. The nature of reality is explored. I liked how Simon, God of Whores, and his hellish dimension overlapped with ours.

So, Piecemeal June is fun in a disgusting way but not quite as good as the other two Krall books I've read. If you decide to give it a try, make sure you have a high tolerance for weird sex and feces.